Soul Identity (5 page)

“You finished the airport report?” Dad asked.

“All done, billed, emailed, and filed.” I smiled at their reactions. I rarely do the paperwork.

“Who’s the new customer?” Mom asked.

I pointed out the window at
Berry
weeding his flowers. “Santa dragged me into this. Did you know that his real name is Arthur Berringer?”

“He goes by
Berry
,” Dad said.

“I wish I had your memory for names, Dad. Not knowing it almost got me killed.” I told them about
Berry
shooting in the air and Bob peeling away.

“The same delivery guy from last week?” Mom stared at me. “Don’t tell me we’re doing business with those Soul Identity wackos.”

“We’re doing business with those wackos. And they’re paying us a month in advance for round-the-clock work.”

Dad almost choked on his coffee. “We charge so much for your time because you only bill ten hours a week.” He punched some numbers on a solar calculator. “The advance will be more than we made last year. Is this for real?”

“I guess we’ll find out if the check shows up today,” I said. I relayed what
Berry
told me about Soul Identity’s bridges between lives, and how I promised that I would help him out, even though I didn’t like what I had heard.

“Tough call on taking them as a client,” Dad said. “Though it’s a nice thing for
Berry
, and maybe they won’t be as bad as they sound.”

“Maybe,” I said. “Hey, I need a favor from you two. Can you come and get your palms read with me this afternoon? There’s a place we need to check out.”

They smiled when I told them how I followed Bob to the palm reader’s. “With money like this, why not?” Mom said.

I remembered my dream, and I showed them the paper. “What do you guys make of this?”

“Looks like you were programming in your sleep,” Mom said.

“With lousy English, too,” Dad said. “What language ends its sentences with is?”

“Maybe it’s not programming. Maybe it’s math,” Mom said. “Soul Identity equals delta is comma.”

Dad said, “Maybe it’s not a comma, but just Scott’s lousy handwriting for an apostrophe. Try this—Soul Identity equals delta eyes.”

I thought for a minute. “Maybe I meant delta of the eye images. Maybe these guys compute the soul’s identity by figuring out the difference between the eyes.”

Dad shrugged. “I guess you’ll find out tomorrow.”

“Let’s find out now.” I fired up my laptop and opened the bluefish eye images. “The spatial data can help to line up the eyes on the same axis,” I said. I rotated the left eye image until the numbers matched. “Now let’s get them the same size.” I zoomed up the right eye image until it matched the left.

Mom looked over my shoulder. “How do you get a delta from that?”

“They probably have a more sophisticated program than my photo editor. One that overlays the images and shows the differences.”

“You’re not going to write all that now, are you?” Dad asked.

“Of course I am.” I opened a new window and started coding. I grabbed a graphics library to manipulate the images and borrowed some old code to display the data nicely. An hour later I looked around, but my parents were outside on the dock. I went to work on the compile bugs.

After another half hour I was close. I stared at my code. It loaded two images, calculated the delta, and then displayed it. Where was the bug? There: I was trying to display an empty buffer.

I fixed and recompiled my code, loaded the images, and clicked the delta button. This time a new pattern came up on the screen. I added a slider that let me control the delta threshold.

I re-ran the program and tried out the slider. My parents came in and saw me moving it around.

“All done?” Dad asked.

“Yeah, the slider controls how strong the deltas have to be to get displayed.” I tapped the screen. “This window shows the differences.”

“Let me try,” Mom grabbed the mouse and fiddled with the slider. “That’s as clear as it’s going to get.”

“So that’s what a bluefish’s soul identity looks like,” Dad said. “Now I’ve seen everything.”

I looked at the screen. Four small yellow triangles sat placed around the pupil. “It doesn’t look like much to me,” I said. “But then again, neither does a fingerprint. Maybe human eyes are different.”

We decided we would combine our palm reading trip with a celebratory lunch at a local restaurant. While my parents wrapped up the office work, I visited
Berry
. I told him I had gotten the contract and would be gone for a while.

“You think there’s any hope to get me in?” he asked.

“Tell me again when you lost your eye.”

“About ten years ago.”

I walked over to the living room wall where the pictures hung and studied each one. “Do any of these show your real eye?”

Berry
pointed. “That convention in Philly was just one week before the accident. And this one too.” He tapped another frame. “From a couple years earlier.”

I looked at the images. The Philly picture had
Berry
’s hair obscuring part of his left eye. The second picture looked much cleaner and focused. “Can I borrow it?” I asked. “I might be able to grab an image of your missing eye and calculate your soul identity.”

He helped me take the picture down.

“I’ll call you as soon as I know something.” I looked at him. “Can you keep it together for the next few weeks?”

He nodded. “I’ll keep it together. But bring me back some good news.”

Dad drove while I
navigated us to Madame Flora’s tiny parking lot. I checked my watch; we were two minutes early. Did palm readers keep a tight schedule?

We went in and stood in a tiny foyer. A large diagram of a hand graced the door in front of us. Its palm showed three horizontal lines labeled Life, Head, and Heart, and three vertical lines marked Fate, Sun, and Hepatica.

I rapped my knuckles on the intersection of Life and Fate. The lights dimmed, and the door swung open.

Madame Flora sat on a couch behind a low glass coffee table. She wore a long maroon robe. I could not gauge her age in the dim light. My parents sat down on the couch facing her, and I sat on a chair to her right.

Madame Flora stared intently at a crystal chandelier hanging above the table. She waved her left hand in the air. I leaned forward and noticed she was holding a remote control in her right hand. She pressed one of the buttons with her thumb.

A woman’s sultry voice crept up the walls of the room. “Welcome to Madame Flora’s. Together you and Madame Flora will discover the answers you have been seeking. Madame Flora will use your astral projection to help you find your direction in life. Madame Flora is the only palm reader in the Mid-Atlantic region who has been certified by both the New Eastern Astrological Society and the Unified Palmists of North America.”

Some kind of squeaky Eastern instrument played quietly over the sound system.

Madame Flora thumbed another button, and the voice continued. “Please use the paper and pencil provided to write down your heart’s most burning questions. When you are finished, drop it in the slot in the middle of the table. This will allow Madame Flora to concentrate and release your astral energy so the answers to your questions may be revealed.” A spotlight brightened and illuminated the coffee table between us.

I saw a pad of paper, a can filled with pencils, and a small slot in the center of the table. Under the slot sat a narrow clay vase.

I took pencil and paper and wrote my question: “Will you help me speak with Archibald Morgan at Soul Identity?” I slid the paper down the slot in the table.

Madame Flora pressed another button. The spotlight dimmed and the voice continued. “Please hold your hands palm-side-up in your lap. Madame Flora will gather the projected astral energy.” The music’s volume increased to the point where I could hear a drum getting whacked and somebody wailing almost in tune with the squeaky instrument.

We held up our palms, but only a minute later the music stopped abruptly and the lights came on. A little old lady stood in front of me, hands on her hips, shooting daggers with her eyes.

Madame Flora sat on the couch with a look of astonishment on her face. “Grandma, I was handling this just fine.” She pulled off a wig and shook out her long brown hair.

The old lady frowned. “They’re not here for palm reading, sweetie. They’re here for Soul Identity.”

I looked at the young girl on the couch. She was slim and cute, no older than nineteen or twenty. “What’s your real name?” I asked her.

“Rose,” she said. “I’m Madame Flora’s granddaughter, and I’m helping her out with her summer workload before I go back to college.” She pointed at the old lady. “She’s the real Madame Flora.”

“What do you want?” the real Madame Flora asked.

“I’d like to see how you talk to Archie,” I said. “Bob told me that this is the way he does it.”

She crossed her arms. “Bob who?”

I shrugged. “His last name begins with an O. He said you have the equipment.”

Madame Flora nodded. “Do you know how to work the machine?”

“No.”

“Neither do I. But I’ve watched others do it many times over the last few years. We could probably figure it out together.” She walked to the far wall, pulled aside a black curtain, and went through an opening. “This way,” she said.

My parents followed. Rose motioned for me to pass through the curtain. I waited a second for my parents to get out of earshot. “So there’s a hole in the bottom of the vase?” I asked.

She giggled. “Gypsies never tell, you know?” She looked at me and cocked an eyebrow. “But what do you think?”

“I think I’ve really ticked off your grandma,” I said.

She chewed on this for a second. “I think if she was really ticked off, she wouldn’t be bringing you to the back.” She slipped off her robe and tossed it onto the couch. Underneath she wore jeans and a pink t-shirt. “That robe is like so hot,” she said. “Anyway, what’s Soul Identity?”

“I was hoping you knew,” I said. “What’s this machine your grandma’s talking about?”

“Let’s go and see.” She parted the curtain, and I followed her through.

We were in a hallway. There was a kitchen on the right and a bathroom on the left. Further down on the left was a bedroom. I peeked in and saw two single beds with pink covers.

Rose stood in front of the doorway on the right. “This is the office.”

I saw my parents standing next to a beige fax machine. Rose was talking to her Grandma. How was that? I looked behind me, and Rose smiled at my reaction. “Meet my little sister, Marie. Marie, this is Scott.”

“Twelve minutes and eleven seconds doesn’t make me your little sister,” Marie said. “Is the fax machine broken?”

“It’s not a fax machine,” Madame Flora said. “It’s a secret contraption that Soul Identity members use when delivering messages of utmost importance.”

Marie rolled her eyes. “Grandma, that’s not a secret contraption. That is a fax machine. Just last week I used it to send some stuff to Mom.”

Madame Flora looked from Marie to Rose. “You kids think you have answers for everything. Somebody came here from Soul Identity and asked if they could keep this contraption here, because they needed a way to communicate their secret messages.”

Rose giggled. “I guess it is a secret contraption to you, Grandma. But to us, it’s just a plain old fax machine. We really do use it to send papers to Mom.” She walked over to the machine and pointed. “We put the papers in here. This part takes a picture and sends it over the telephone to Mom’s machine. She gets a copy.”

Madame Flora shook her head. “Sending papers to your mother over the telephone. What will they think of next?”

“I just heard of an invention that sends movies through the airwaves. They’re calling it television,” Rose said. She turned and mouthed “Di-no-saur” to the rest of us.

“Are you laughing at me?” Madame Flora asked.

Rose patted her on the back. “It’s fine, Grandma, that’s why we’re here this summer. We’re easing you into the twenty-first century.” She turned toward us. “Next week we’re getting her a computer, broadband, and an email account. Woo-hoo, Grandma’s going surfing!”

“And it’s a good thing, too, because I’m dying from being offline for so long,” Marie said. “All my friends must think I hate them.

I looked at Madame Flora. “Why did Soul Identity ask you in the first place? Did you know about them before?”

She looked at Rose and Marie. “Well, girls, it’s time you knew anyway.”

“Time we knew what?” Marie asked.

“My grandmother was a member of Soul Identity many years ago. She was also a soul reader.” Madame Flora unlocked a cabinet in the corner and pulled out an old, battered traveling suitcase. “I kept her equipment somewhere. Here it is.” She lifted out a wooden box from inside the suitcase and put it on the counter.

We gathered around the box. “Was your grandmother also a palmist?” Mom asked.

Madame Flora smiled. “Yes, the oldest daughter of each generation in our family always becomes a palmist.” She nodded at Rose and Marie. “Or in this case, the oldest daughters.”

Rose looked at us. “Grandma says we both have to do it, but neither of us really wants to.”

“I’m going to be a children’s rights lawyer,” Marie said. “And Rose is going to be a marine biologist.”

“As long as you also read palms, you can be anything you want,” Madame Flora said.

“Yeah, that’s the problem.” Marie looked at me. “Picture a lawyer’s office with a large hand stuck outside. Madame Marie—children’s advocate and palmist.”

“Or how about a palm on the side of a boat?” Rose asked. “Madame Rose’s underwater readings.”

“A good palmist is hard to find, and it pays the bills. And that’s not even counting the Soul Identity commissions.” Madame Flora turned the box around. “Now let’s see what’s in here.”

“Wait a second. You get commissions from Soul Identity?” I asked.

Madame Flora’s hand flew up and covered her mouth. “Did I say that? I have become such an old lady.”

Right.

“But now that it’s out,” she said, “please tell your Soul Identity friends that I’m very upset that they rejected the Berringer fellow. They should find a way to make him a member and pay me my share. I was the one who brought him in.”

“Grandma, open the box,” Marie said. “You can talk money later.”

Madame Flora lifted the lid and smiled. “Look, Granny’s membership card.” She showed us its picture of a triangle with two eyes in the middle. There was no company name on the card; just the picture and an illegible handwritten name half covered with an embossed seal.

Last night’s dream flashed through my mind. “Do you know what this symbol means?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I see it on the sides of the vans when the delivery men stop by.”

I tried to picture Bob’s green van. I recalled an image, green on green, barely visible, on the sliding door. It could be the same.

Dad picked up the card and examined it. He looked at me. “Looks like your formula, Scott.”

With the triangle and two eyes, it did resemble my delta formula. So I wasn’t a genius after all. “What else is in there?” I asked.

Madame Flora rummaged through what looked like tubes of oil paint and brushes. She held up a green velvet bag. She pulled out a shiny gold instrument built around some lenses and mirrors. It looked a bit like a small pair of binoculars. “Granny called this her reader,” she said.

I held out my hands. “May I?”

“Be careful with it.” She handed it to me.

Other than its lenses, the reader bore little resemblance to the electronic one I used on the bluefish. I saw some hinges, and I carefully unfolded the attached gold rods.

“Those look like the temples from a pair of eyeglasses.” Dad pointed. “Look at how they curve at the ends, like they could fit over your ears. And here’s the nose bridge.” He took the reader out of my hands and held it up. “My head’s too big.” He examined the reader again. “Hold on, there’s another set on this end.”

I looked at the twins. “Would you two try this on?”

Madame Flora nodded, and Rose and Marie stepped forward.

Dad put the temples over Rose’s ears and settled the bridge on her nose. He maneuvered Marie closer and put the other temples over her ears.

Marie gasped. “Rose, you have one big eye right in the middle of your forehead.”

“I can’t see anything,” Rose said.

“What else do you see, Marie?” Madame Flora asked.

“I’m not sure, Grandma. Just a sec.”

We were silent as Marie looked again.

“Okay,” she said. “Rose looks like she has only one eye, but the colors are a little off, like they’re too bright in some parts and too dull in others. There’s a bunch of triangles and crescents around the edge of the white part.”

“Cool, let me see, Marie,” Rose said.

“Wait!” Madame Flora said, but the girls were already taking off the reader, turning it around, and putting it back on.

“Wow, Marie, your eye is huge. You have some funny shapes around your iris.” They took off the reader and gave it back to Madame Flora.

Madame Flora folded the reader and put it back in its velvet bag. She looked at the twins. “Maybe you can make us some tea?”

“Yes, Grandma,” they said together. They left the room.

Madame Flora frowned. “You’re not Soul Identity members, are you?”

“No,” I said, “But we’re about to work for them, and we want to know what we are getting into. Do you trust them?”

She shook her head. “Trust isn’t part of the formula. It’s business. I tell hopeless people their lives will improve, and Soul Identity members come along and do the rest. Then I get a commission.” She paused for a minute. “Their lives do get better. They stop worrying all the time. And they become repeat customers.”

One of the girls called out, “the tea’s ready, Grandma.”

We sat with Madame Flora at a little kitchen table. Rose poured the tea and Marie brought out cookies.

“We’re not very good at house stuff. But I can make tea, and Rose can sort of bake cookies,” Marie said.

“What do you mean sort of?” Rose looked at us. “Go ahead, taste them.”

Mom bit into her cookie. “Interesting. What are they?”

“Chocolate chip,” Rose said. “Only Marie and I ate all the chips yesterday. And I couldn’t find the salt, so I substituted with extra—”

“Maybe it’s better to keep your recipe a secret, sweetie.” Madame Flora took a sip of tea and grimaced. “Oh dear. What flavor is that?”